In 2014, 55% of Scots voted to stay in the UK while 45% pipped
for independence.

However, Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon has been
gunning for another independence referendum,
since Scotland overwhelmingly voted to remain in the EU
referendum (62%) while Britain as a whole voted for a
Brexit.

Catterall did say, however, that Scottish National Party leader
Nicola Sturgeon was extremely "canny" and that she was the only
politician who had risen to level the events demanded in the wake
of the Brexit chaos — which saw Prime Minister David Cameron
resign on Friday and both of the UK's main political parties
scramble to secure their positions.

But following a decisive Scottish vote to remain in the EU, the
post-Brexit anger in Scotland could be enough to make Westminster
politicians think twice about allowing another independent
Scotland vote. And there is no constitutional obligation for the
UK government to allow it to happen, Dr. Catterall says:

"The argument the UK government may put forward is that it needs
to approve a second Scottish referendum and could, in
theory, withhold the consent. When the Americans wanted
independence in 1776 they did it by violence. We don’t want that
— we want to follow constitutional procedure. The question then
becomes, how far do you push against the inevitable?

"Nicola Sturgeon - said she would advise Scottish parliament to
vote against leave resolutions. That is in her right to do so.
Scotland voted solidly against Leave, so it’s unreasonable for
her to do anything else. Democratic rule says
we have to respect the will of the people, but what people? The
British people? The English people? The Scottish
people?"

Dr. Catterall adds that while Sturgeon is being smart about how
she plays post-Brexit politics, the EU may also have problems
with an independent Scotland joining:

"Sturgeon is the only politician who comes across as someone with
a plan. She’s sending out a signal to the Scottish people — we
hear what you have said — and she’s sending out a message to
Westminster and Brussels. There is also a risk that EU
members, particularly the Spanish, would not like to see Scotland
secede because areas like Catalonia may follow suit."

Scotland's economy cannot handle independence

Another consideration is that Scotland might not even be able to
afford to be independent right now — and Nicola Sturgeon almost
certainly knows it. As Dr. Catterall says:

"[Scotland's] economy has moved since 2014's independence
referendum. The oil price has changed, the exposure of major
Scottish banks has become even worse as we’ve seen with the RBS
share price recently, so I suspect that what Sturgeon is doing is
exploratory talks. She’s a cautious, canny politician. I was
struck by the way she got Alex Salmond, rather than herself, to
work the TV studios and make the noises. This gives her plausible
deniability. Unlike Boris Johnson, she is unlikely to say
something she doesn’t think she can deliver on."

Agreeing on what kind of independence Scotland gets will
be almost impossible

Even if Scotland could get an independence referendum, the manner
of that independence is going to be really hard to agree on— much
like the headache Westminster is having at the moment trying to
figure out the Brexit. As Dr. Catterall makes clear, the EU
already has a few examples of members with
non-standardised arrangements, and finding one that suits
the majority will be tough:

"There are a number of halfway houses. Take Denmark: it is in the
EU, but two parts of Denmark — Greenland and the Faroe Islands —
are not in the EU. Is this a model for Scotland? The answer is:
nobody quite knows. It will be a matter for politics. What we do
know is that it worked for Denmark and even Germany getting the
East half in around the time of reunification, so it’s certainly
not impossible to conceive an asymmetric UK in which a
semi-autonomous Scotland is in the EU and rest of mainland
Britain isn’t. But in practice, it would be very messy to
establish."

Whatever Scotland decides, the signs currently suggest it wants
to keep its EU option open. Alyn Smith begged the European
Parliament this morning to "not let Scotland down," making it
clear that whether it gets its unlikely independence referendum
or not, it still sides with Europe: